Dol towers are… Well, I don’t know really. Originally they were stacks of rice cakes that were passed out to guests as party favors. Each color of the rice cake represents different elements of life: health, safety, purity, honesty, and of course a long life. Sharing the rice cakes is supposed to help bless the child with each of these things. Also, they are really yummy and just should be shared! Today the more modern thing to do is create a series of towers that represent the child. In our case we had three. One that represented her chinese zodiac for the year she was born, one that had her Korean name and one that said first birthday. They are more for decorative purposes and, in a way, maybe a little more practical than trying to consume/pass-off hundreds of rice cakes…

My Grandmother and I working on our tower

Here’s what the finished towers looked like at the party. Not too shabby, eh? This was the combined effort of 5 people and many hours. Now, as long as my family produces female children, cyclically in the year of the tiger, whom all happen to take the Korean name of Min Young, we won’t have to do this again… ever. Just kidding guys. It wasn’t THAT bad.